The project, Assessing the Impact of a Disciplinary Teaching and Learning Center on Current and Future Faculty Professional Development, addresses a pressing national need to identify, assess, and promote successful models for increasing faculty and graduate student involvement in meaningful efforts to revitalize the undergraduate science curriculum. The project investigates the impact of a disciplinary-based teaching and learning center and a set of promising professional development activities directed at establishing faculty-driven innovations in curriculum reform teaching in science. These types of efforts have the potential to enhance the educational experience of large numbers of undergraduate students. Promising practices include teaching and learning workshops, teaching seminars by visiting scholars, disciplinary and interdisciplinary teaching communities, individualized mentoring, and travel grants for faculty and graduate students to attend teaching conferences. Intellectual merit: The project has the potential to provide evidence on how faculty and institutions can build capacity for excellence in undergraduate science education through participation in well-designed professional development efforts. Broader impacts: The project has the potential to contribute to the growing literature on the impact of faculty professional development on teaching and learning in STEM through the identification, investigation, and promotion of models of faculty professional development. In addition, the project begins to examine the association between faculty outcomes from participation in professional development activities with student outcomes from faculty-driven innovation in science education.
We created a teaching and learning center in the College of Chemical and Life Sciences to provide a disciplinary professional development infrastructure for current and future faculty. To this end, we developed and provided a menu of professional development activities, as described below (see Figure 1): Teaching and learning workshops: These provided our College community a venue to learn about effective teaching practices and foster dialogue about teaching and learning. The TLC also hosted orientation workshops for new faculty members. Visiting teacher/scholars: Each semester, the TLC hosted visiting teaching/scholars who served as role models for current and future faculty by demonstrating their ability to integrate effective teaching and science research (see list of visitors in http://cmns-tlc.umd.edu/teachingandlearningcenter/visitingteacher/scholarseries). Individualized support for new and experienced faculty members: TLC staff assisted faculty members with curriculum change, implementation of evidence-based teaching approaches, and adoption of appropriate assessment tools, as well as researching and disseminating these activities. Professional development activities for graduate students: The TLC offered a mandatory short-term program for new graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and optional activities open to those who are interested in a more intensive professional development program. Consultation and support for Teaching and learning communities: The TLC encouraged faculty involvement in a variety of faculty learning communities (FLCs) that facilitated curricular redesign and supported faculty in their efforts to adopt innovative teaching strategies. We had cultivated five FLCs. The impact of the TLC on faculty teaching and student learning was evaluated through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, including observations, surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews (see http://cmns-tlc.umd.edu/tlcmeasurementtools for tools and literature). Key elements of our evaluation are described below. Documenting participation in TLC activities: We recorded participation in our professional development activities. In 2012-2013, 101 faculty members, 67 graduate students, and 4 postdocs from the chemical and biological sciences participated at least in one of our professional development activities. Our activities drew many additional participants from other UMD departments and from nearby universities. Conducting pre- post- interviews with new faculty members: We conducted a longitudinal study with eleven new faculty members, exploring their challenges and expectations regarding teaching. Each new faculty member was interviewed when they arrived at the university (2007) and three years later (2010). We found that most new faculty members entered the College with little teaching experience and many concerns related to curriculum, instruction, and time management. Based on these interviews, we adapted our professional development activities to faculty needs. In the final interviews, faculty members expressed teaching philosophies that were more in line with national recommendations than in the initial interview, which we attributed in part to their participation in TLC activities (see Figure 2). Surveying faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Faculty members and graduate students were surveyed in 2011 and 2013. The surveys probed their beliefs about teaching, use of innovative teaching and engagement in professional development activities. We also surveyed graduating seniors every semester. The data that we collected from these three populations afforded us a cross-sectional view that helped us understand where we can target our professional development programs. For example, in the spring of 2011, we surveyed 288 undergraduate seniors, 99 GTAs, and 71 faculty members and compared their perspectives using mixed methods analysis. Across all three populations, most of the respondents placed high importance on skills that are consistent with nationally recommended best practices, such as developing conceptual understanding. However, there were differences between the three populations regarding the importance of other educational approaches, such as emphasizing memorization and group work. Our findings also revealed a gap between the approaches that faculty believed were important and the approaches they reported using in their classrooms. Faculty learning communities appeared to be an effective means of encouraging effective teaching practices: faculty who participated in communities were more likely to use student-centered instructional approaches than those who did not (see Figure 3). Evaluating GTA preparation: We surveyed GTAs who participated in the mandatory prep courses and in the optional university teaching certificate program. We also collected end-of-course evaluations completed by undergraduate students. We conducted a study comparing teaching evaluations for the GTAs who had completed our mandatory preparatory courses to the teaching evaluations for the GTAs prior to the implementation of the training course. GTAs who had completed the preparatory courses scored higher in various measures of teaching efficacy than did GTAs who had not completed the courses (see Figure 4). Major achievements of the TLC were documented and disseminated through presentations at national conferences (e.g., AAC&U/Project Kaleidoscope, NARST, ASMCUE, ABLE), invited presentations at other universities, publications in peer-reviewed journals (4 papers published, 2 accepted, and 1 under review in FY2013), and the TLC website. We also share instructional materials, evaluation tools, and other resources.
